Careful Not to Slip
by athousandelegies
Summary: It's been somewhere around two decades since the Almost-Apocalypse, and things are shifting between Crowley and Aziraphale. Ice skating and important conversations are involved.


"Oh, don't give me that attitude. You'll have some nice flowers budding by tomorrow if you know what's good for you, cold weather be damned."

Had anyone walked into Crowley's flat at that moment searching for a demon, they would have taken one look at this tall, dark-haired figure waving pruning shears threateningly at a plant and walked right out again, certain they'd gotten the address wrong. Anyone except for one particular angel, that was—but _he_ wasn't likely to come round any time soon, as Crowley was endeavoring to forget.

He set the shears down, slamming them a bit harder than necessary against his worktable, causing the poor plant he'd just finished threatening to tremble in its pot. He brushed stray soil off his normally crisp shirt, and with one last warning glare at the plant he returned to his lounge and collapsed on the sofa with a sigh.

He didn't feel like turning on the state-of-the-art television taking up practically the entire wall in front of him, choosing rather to stare vacantly at its blank black screen. _Someone_, he was bored. Maybe he'd fall asleep. That would be nice.

If Crowley had been one to pray—and rest assured, he most certainly was not—he would have declared his prayers answered when his phone started to ring.

Surely it wasn't—but who else could it be? No one else ever called, not even telemarketers, who would, most likely, conveniently vanish from existence if they even thought about trying his number. He told himself not to get excited, but he sprang up from the sofa with more energy than he'd had in weeks. He made himself wait for the fourth ring before picking up the receiver.

"A. J. Crowley speaking, state your name and intent and prepare for immediate dismemberment if you're not someone important."

"My dear, it's me." And even though the physical voice was different from the one Crowley had grown accustomed to over the past few decades, it sent the warmth of recognition flooding through his gut. He'd know the speaker of those words anywhere, in any corporeal form.

"Hey, angel. I was wondering when you'd get your arse back down here." He kept his tone free of inflection, but he knew his friend would have no difficulty reading the elation in his words. "You're a good deal sooner than I'd expected, actually."

"I was very surprised to find out how little Earth time had passed while I was away," Aziraphale agreed. "Discorporated in early December and back for January; they're usually only so swift during years of crisis."

To Crowley's dismay, an awkward pause followed the angel's words. He hastened to fill it up. "So, what do you say we go to the Ritz tonight? It's been a while."

"I was hoping you'd ask, dear," Aziraphale replied, and Crowley was relieved to hear genuine warmth in his counterpart's voice.

"Cool," he said nonchalantly, "I'll pick you up at five, shall I?"

…

It was only a quarter to five when the Bentley pulled up in front of a battered old bookshop in Soho. Crowley was a little embarrassed to be _early_—usually he made sure to arrive everywhere fashionably late—but Aziraphale answered the door before he could knock, as though he'd already been waiting for him.

"Wow, angel, look at you!" Crowley exclaimed, looking his friend over. "They gave you a pretty spiffy vessel this time around."

"You think so?" Aziraphale asked, looking down at himself.

"Yeah. You haven't worn that look in a few centuries; it's always looked good on you."

Aziraphale's last couple of vessels had been blond and of a pale complexion; this one's features were Indian: dark hair (but still curly), dark skin, dark brown eyes that shone with the same compassion that his old blue ones had.

"I'm glad you think so," Aziraphale beamed; "hopefully I'll manage to hang on to it a while."

There were people gathered in the front of the restaurant when they arrived, waiting for their reserved time; Crowley and Aziraphale strolled right past them. They were ushered to a very nice table for two, situated near a window overlooking the snowy streets of London. As soon as they'd decided what they wanted to order, a waiter swooped in to serve them, and as soon as they needed their bill quite some time later, a waiter delivered it promptly to them. Waiting, after all, was not Crowley's style. (Come to think of it, neither was actually paying for food, but Aziraphale always insisted on that.)

They ambled back out into the cold London air, making their way to the Bentley.

"Your place or mine?" Aziraphale asked placidly, as they settled into the familiar old car.

"Er, actually, I was thinking we might…that is, only if you're up for it…it's kind of stupid, but I was thinking we could go ice skating? I, er, acquired some skates." Crowley motioned to the Bentley's rear seats, where two pairs of skates were lain. "Maybe it would be fun?" he finished quickly.

"Oh Crowley, that sounds delightful!" Aziraphale gushed.

The Bentley rolled up to St. James' Park not long after, and they got out. All was very still, a hushed snowfall drifting gently down across the darkened world.

"I've not gone skating since, when was it, the seventeenth century, I believe," Aziraphale prattled on. "It was this very lake, actually!—though it looked a bit different back then. and the only ice skates I've used have had bone blades…I wonder if metal ones will be more difficult?"

They were waddling rather ungracefully towards the lake through a couple inches of snow, having put the skates on at the car. Crowley was only listening to the angel's rambling with half an ear, focusing on willing the cold to keep its icy hands off him—didn't it know who he _was_? He didn't quite succeed, succumbing to an onslaught of shivers: apparently winter didn't give a damn that he was an agent of Hell.

"Oh, my dear, I told you to bring gloves," Aziraphale chided.

"Eh, it's no big deal, gives me an excuse to do this," he replied, seizing the angel's hand in a fit of daring. Aziraphale smiled, and Crowley felt heat blossom in his chest and cheeks, chasing off the chill of winter.

They reached the lake, and together, they stepped out onto the ice. If it wasn't actually thick enough to support their weight, it didn't tell them so. That was one of the benefits of being occult (or ethereal, as Aziraphale would protest) beings: ice knew better than to cave in under your feet.

Aziraphale released Crowley's hand to push off on his own. He skimmed across the surface of the ice like a water bug across water. Crowley couldn't help feeling surprised to see his normally ungainly friend gliding so gracefully along. As he looped back towards the demon still standing near the edge, he let out an ecstatic whoop, which echoed merrily through the hush of the night. "Look, Crowley, I still remember how to skate! And these are easier to use than those old bone blades by far!"

He grabbed at Crowley's hand, but the demon pulled back. "I'm going to take it slowly, if you don't mind," he said. "I've never skated before."

Aziraphale skidded to a halt, the blades of his skates making a neat slicing sound against the ice and scraping up a small heap of shavings. "Never? Well then, my dear boy, allow me to teach you!"

Crowley allowed Aziraphale to take him by both his hands as he began to instruct him, "Right. Place one foot in front of the next, just like walking…"

They made their way around the lake in this fashion, Aziraphale skating backwards to guide Crowley forwards, their pace leisurely. The sound of their blades slicing against the ice had a very satisfying cadence to it.

"Are you sure you haven't skated since the seventeenth century?" Crowley asked once he'd gotten the hang of moving well enough to concentrate on something other than his feet gliding forward. "It's incredible you remembered so quickly."

"Well, I suppose it one of those things, like riding a bike," Aziraphale mused. "Humans have a word for it, er…muscle memory, yes, that's it. You know, the muscles memorize the movement so that, even years later, you can perform certain actions without a thought."

"But these aren't the same muscles you had back in the 1600s," Crowley argued, amused.

"Oh. Good point." Aziraphale's face took on a pensive look, and they skidded along the ice in silence for a moment. "At any rate, I reckon you're set to try moving on your own now." And without further warning, he released the demon's hands.

"Oh! Okay, all right, yeah, this isn't too hard," Crowley said as he continued moving forward, wobbled, and then promptly slipped back and fell on his rear, hard. "_Umph_!"

Aziraphale glided over to help him up. "Are you all right, dear?" he asked sincerely, but Crowley detected the laughter hidden in his tone, and his brown eyes were gleaming with suppressed mirth.

"Taking pleasure from my pain, that's a little sadistic for an angel," Crowley grumbled as he was righted again.

It took what seemed an endless number of falls for him to succeed in propelling himself forward more than a couple feet, but at last he managed it. "Look, Az, I'm skating! Wait—wait how do you—" Failing to turn, he hit the edge of the lake and slammed face first into a bank of snow. Aziraphale had to coax him back onto the ice after that.

Aziraphale guided him through turning and stopping. Eventually Crowley was gliding along, not effortlessly exactly, but with significantly fewer tumbles. He even hazarded a twirl of sorts that made Aziraphale cheer.

"Shall we stop?" Aziraphale panted perhaps half an hour later. Both of them were sweaty and flushed despite the cold, and Crowley had to admit his thighs ached from so much exertion.

"No way in hel—um, on earth," Crowley replied. "You haven't fallen once yet, and that's just not fair."

"So what, we just keep skating till I keel over?" Aziraphale asked exasperatedly. "What if I just don't fall?"

"Of course you will," Crowley argued, "eventually. It's got to be some sort of scientific law: if you skate around the lake an infinite number of laps, surely you have to fall at some point."

"That's just silly—_oomph_!" Crowley had suddenly lunged into the angel from behind, sending them both careening into the snow at the side of the lake.

"There you go!" Crowley crowed gleefully. "Cold, isn't it?"

"Now who's being sadistic," Aziraphale mumbled crossly, hurrying to raise himself from the ground.

"I'm a demon, I'm allowed to be sadistic."

"Well, at least you went down with me," Aziraphale harrumphed.

"Oh, shut it," Crowley said, and dumped snow over Aziraphale's dark curls.

And suddenly they were behaving more like teenaged humans than six-thousand-year-old entities, scooping up snow to shove down each other's coats and yelling against the chill.

"Oh my word, we'll catch our deaths of cold," Aziraphale murmured after they both had crumpled, exhausted, into the snow. "Or rather, our discorporations."

"We probably will, but let's get up off the ground, at least," Crowley said cheerfully. They got up and brushed themselves off. "Snow down the back, now _that_ is true evil," he said with a shiver as he worked to shake snow out of his shirt.

"Here, dear, hands please," Aziraphale said, reaching to take them. The angel was like a furnace, heat emanating from his hands into Crowley's, and up Crowley's arms into the rest of his body.

"Thanks," he said gratefully. "Oi, look!" He pointed towards the sky. "Shooting stars!"

It was a meteor shower. Pinpricks of light were raining across the clear black sky, looking just like…

"Make a wish, angel," he murmured. Aziraphale squeezed his hand; he knew what the demon was thinking about.

"Seems like so long ago, doesn't it?" Aziraphale said quietly. "When It happened."

"Mmm," Crowley grunted, a noncommittal noise. They watched the spectacle in silence for a minute, heads tilted back to behold the meteors' fiery display, each thinking of a Fall of a different sort than this. Then: "No. Not really. I can remember it like no time's passed at all."

"I wish it hadn't happened," Aziraphale said, very quietly. The air grew charged, as if the night could taste the blasphemy just uttered on an angel's breath. "That's my wish."

"Well it can't come true _now_," Crowley told him, adopting a too-cheery tone. "You're not supposed to say your wish _aloud_."

"Did it…hurt? Falling?"

Crowley could feel his companion's tension, through his hand and emanating from his aura. This topic was one of many that was simply Not To Be Discussed. Aziraphale was waiting for Crowley to be angry, to brush him off, to storm away.

"Yes," Crowley replied. "It hurt. More than anything."

Again they stood in silence, each lost in his own thoughts, remembering the same long-passed event, but from opposite points of view: Aziraphael had seen it from above, watched helplessly as so many of his brethren tumbled from the clouds into the gaping maw of Hell an infinite distance below; Crowley, with a name Lost long ago, from the thick of it, screaming and flailing and burning with the other Falling angels.

After a while the meteors fizzled out, the last of them streaking across the sky like a glittering silver tear.

The next words to break the silence were uttered so quietly that Crowley couldn't tell whether Aziraphale meant for him to hear or not.

"I'd Fall for you."

Crowley felt as if another snowball had been stuffed down his collar; icy shock surged down his spine, and he yanked his hand away from Aziraphale's.

"How dare—you don't know what—Aziraphale, don't you dare say that," he sputtered; "don't you fucking dare!"

"Crowley, please, your language!" Aziraphale responded, but the pain in his voice had nothing to do with the expletive.

"Yeah, yeah, _my_ language—except it's not mine, is it? Or yours." Crowley wasn't sure why he was deciding to get worked up about linguistics, but it seemed a safe enough target for the sudden rage and desperation that were simultaneously freezing and boiling his insides. "It's a bloody _human_ language, not made for us! How are we supposed to communicate properly with nothing but a handful of shoddy sounds humans made up? How am I supposed to tell you how I—"

He was interrupted by arms around him, and was startled into silence.

Since that fateful day two decades ago when they'd held hands to face Satan himself, physical contact between them had gradually become almost common. At first it had been awkward, but with both of them pretending not to notice it was awkward: they'd sit closer together on Crowley's sofa, settle arms across one another's shoulders, even hold hands when there was justification for it, like tonight. Neither was sure what it meant, and each knew the other didn't know what it meant either, and knew that the other knew that they knew—oh, it really was a mess. Something that they didn't discuss, but rather just let happen, because somehow physical contact through their corporeal forms had become pleasant. Comforting.

But an embrace? That wasn't a leap they'd taken yet. And now Aziraphale had his arms as tight as they would go around his friend.

"The humans have other languages besides verbal ones, my dear," he murmured into Crowley's shoulder. "And they communicate enough."

Crowley allowed himself to relax, and returned the embrace. He did his utmost to channel all his emotion into the contact, throwing his whole Self into it, so that his and Aziraphale's essences mingled and merged, like water disintegrating into wine.

"_I don't want you to Fall. I need you to be _my Angel_. You're the good in me. How about you make sure _not_ to Fall instead. Can you do that for me? Don't Fall_." Crowley said none of this aloud, not a word. But Aziraphale heard and understood more clearly than if Crowley had screamed it to the sky.

They said nothing for the longest time, a small eternity packed into a few minutes of a quiet London night. Both could have remained like that forever, arms encircling and essences blending and unspoken thoughts passed between them as though from one shared mind. But eventually, as one, they pulled apart.

The snow around them had melted clear away, a patch of bright green grass beneath their feet. Tiny flowers were sprouting around them, a shock of violet in the whiteness of the snow.

"That's embarrassing," Crowley said at last. "Promise you won't tell the other demons, Az."

Aziraphale laughed at the joke, breaking the spell that had been around them. "As you wish, my dear."

Their relationship had been changing, shifting, since Armageddon had failed to end the world. Sometimes this scared Crowley, and he knew it preoccupied the angel too. But for tonight, in St. James' Park with a light snow wandering serenely downward, it was Right. Everything was all right. Perhaps they didn't have Forever, but there was time enough for now to skate across the ice together, hand in hand, keeping each other steady.


End file.
